People demonstrate to press for the release of missing Chibok school girls in Lagos on May 12, 2014. Boko Haram released a new video on Monday claiming to show the missing Nigerian schoolgirls, alleging they had converted to Islam and would not be released until all militant prisoners were freed. (Photo By: PIUS UTOMI EKPEI)

Updated: March 8, 2015 @ 9pm ET:

Over 50 persons were killed in Nigeria on Saturday in at least three separate blasts, not long after Nigerian terror group Boko Haram pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State.

The blasts occurred in Maiduguri, the capital of the tumultuous Borno state, an area that Boko Haram is pratically running outside of the elected government. Four suicide bombers — three women and a man — carried out the attacks, according to witnesses, reports CNN.

Early reports indicate that at least 54 people were killed and another 139 were wounded in the suicide attacks.

CNN reports:

In the first blast, a woman dressed in a hijab got off a motorized rickshaw and blew herself up outside the Baga Road fish market around 11:20 a.m. (5:20 a.m. ET).

The next attack took place about an hour later outside Monday Market, the main one in the city, where people were lined up to go through security. Those measures — in which people are checked for explosives and guns — were set up because of the spate of Boko Haram attacks in the city and region.

Two women joined the female security line, one of whom “blew herself up, causing minimal casualty,” said witness Abdulkarim Musa. Then, as people gathered to help, the second woman detonated her explosives, said Musa, who was waiting outside the market in the male security line. The third attack occurred at a bus station.

In related news, on Sunday, Chad and Niger launched a joint army operation against Boko Haram, an intra-African push to defeat the terror group that has killed thousands, reports Al-Jazeera.

Earlier….

Nigerian terror squad Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to ISIS, according to an audio statement released today, reports the BBC.

The message came via Twitter, as per the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau. In the past, Boko Haram has been linked to al-Qaeda. They are the ones who are behind the more than 260 missing school girls from Chibok in April 2014.

Reports the BBC:

Boko Haram began a military campaign to impose Islamic rule in northern Nigeria in 2009. The conflict has since spread to neighboring states. ISIS took control of large swathes of territory in eastern Syria and across northern and western Iraq last year.

The group aims to establish a “caliphate”, a state ruled by a single political and religious leader according to Islamic law, or Sharia. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is known to his followers as Caliph Ibrahim.

In the audio message posted on Saturday, the Boko Haram leader purportedly said: “We announce our allegiance to the caliph… and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity. “We call on Muslims everywhere to pledge allegiance to the caliph.”

Photo taken on February 14, 2010 shows Ugandans taking part in an anti-gay demonstrations at Jinja, Kampala. A Ugandan pastor seeking to bolster Uganda’s anti-gay laws which already make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment screened gay porn in a packed Kampala church Wednesday February 17, 2010 in a bid to drum up support that was attended by around 300 supporters after plans for a ‘million-man march’ were thwarted by police. (Trevor Snapp/AFP/Getty Images)

In the last few years, Uganda has come under almost-universal condemnation the world over for its Anti-Homosexuality Act (PDF), or its “Kill the Gays bill,” which initially called for the death penalty against LGBTQ people in the Eastern African country. This weekend, the bill’s original sponsor said he was going to reintroduce the law, which was struck down in August, according to The Daily Beast.

Member of Parliament David Bahati, who first introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Act in 2009, lead the law’s ratification in December 2013. International condemnation was swift, and the AHA was struck down for procedural reasons by a Ugandan court in August 2014. As is now stands, same-sex relationships are currently illegal in Uganda.

Beyond illegality, the AHA seeks to significantly broaden the criminalization of homosexuality in Uganda; it initially called for death for cases of “aggravated homosexuality,” hence its repositioning as the “Kill the Gays bill,” but this was later reduced to life imprisonment. Alarmingly, the original provisions of the AHA are severe and far-reaching.

Besides life imprisonment for gay couples living together, Ugandans engaging in gay acts outside of the country would face criminal extradition; individuals, media, NGOs, and businesses are required to report any form of homosexual activity within 24 hours or face fines and imprisonment; and those who are suspected of homosexual activity must undergo forced HIV tests under the law’s terms.

Interestingly, it is American Christian evangelicals who are credited with putting the sails behind the initial “Kill the Gays bill.” Prominent evangelicals such as Scott Lively and Rick Warren have been doing “missionary” work in Uganda for decades, and have been accused of meddling in African public policy, helping to create a culture where Christian morality is shrouded in gross human rights violations (though Warren has denied supporting the AHA).

In fact, in 2009, the original Anti-Homosexuality Act was introduced just a month after a two-day evangelical Christian conference, which reportedly used the debunked pseudoscience of prominent “ex gay” proponent, Richard Cohen (who links homosexuality with pedophilia). In a nation that overwhelmingly identifies as Christian, evangelicals, both American and African, have been able to position homosexuality as “Satanic,” as well as a direct threat to the cohesion of African families.

In a January 2010 piece for the Los Angeles Times called “Black, Gay and Indisputably Africa,” Douglas Foster touched on the paradoxical nature of Western influence being brought to bear on homosexuality in Africa. He writes:

The theme of homophobic African politicians is that gay identity is a perversion imposed on black people by white oppressors. The historical fact is the reverse, of course: Legal prohibitions on homosexuality were originally imposed by white colonial rulers. So it’s no small twist in the plot that the new wave of threats to Ugandan gays should be reinforced by American religious extremists.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who first supported and signed the “Kill the Gays bill” into law in 2009, remains under heavy pressure not to endorse it this time around—not only because of international condemnation, but also because of money. The Obama administration has already cut $6.4 million in aid to the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, a virulently anti-gay organization that pushed for the AHA.

Yet activists are reportedly mixed on whether pulling aid is the way to go.

For one, Uganda is a poor country. Thirty eight percent of its population lives on less than $1.25 a day. For another, HIV prevalence is the highest in Eastern Africa at over 7 percent. There is the concern that cutting aid would result in a backlash of more violence against those who are gay, or even suspected of being gay.

In October 2010, Ugandan magazine Rolling Stone (not affiliated with the American music magazine of the same name) published a story featuring a list of the nation’s 100 “top” gays and lesbians with photos and addresses. Next to the list was a yellow strip with the words “hang them.”

Although gay activists are literally threatened, the Daily Beast reports that Ugandan-based activists have been mobilizing since August in anticipation that the Anti-Homosexuality Act would resurface.

Adrian Jjuuko, Executive Director of the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum, whose advocacy helped lead to the 2009 AHA being vacated, told the Daily Beast that he wants to tie gay rights with broader rights for all Ugandans, especially around the cause of economic justice.

“The LGBT community must lift itself up with everyone,” Jjuuko said. “Otherwise, we will all be stuck in the same quagmire.” Further, he asks, “What good are LGBTI economic rights if no one in the country can afford salt?”

Angela Bronner Helm is a Harlem-based writer and educator. Follow her on Twitter at @anjiihelm

]]>http://newsone.com/3094538/uganda-kill-the-gays-bill-reintroduced/feed/11Photo taken on February 14, 2010 shows Urthangel73Photo taken on February 14, 2010 shows UPresident Of Liberia Thanks POTUS For Not Caving To Fear In Ebola Crisis [VIDEO]http://newsone.com/3094391/liberia-thanks-us-for-not-caving-to-ebola-fears/
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US President Barack Obama takes part in a briefing on the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa, during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on September 16, 2014. President Obama was set to outline an assistance strategy, including the deployment of 3,000 US military personnel and plans to train up to 500 health care providers per week in Liberia. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN)

More than four years after last meeting in the Oval Office, the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and President Barack Obama met on Friday at the White House. Predictably, most of the remarks were about the Ebola crisis—which has devastated Liberia and the neighboring countries of Guinea and Sierra Leone with more than 10,000 dead—and how we will move forward.

In his remarks before the meeting, President Obama noted that Liberia and the United States have an “extraordinary bond and history” (it was founded by U.S. citizens as a country for emancipated slaves), and expressed condolences for the devastation that Ebola wrought on the West African nation.

Sirleaf, who has been in the U.S. since Tuesday, has met with several high-ranking U.S. organizations and officials including representatives from USAID, as well as Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter at the Pentagon, and Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware), before her final meeting with the president.

According to the New York Times, Sirleaf urged the United States to maintain its assistance to her country as it continues to recover, including help with power projects to keep hospitals and new treatment centers running, monies for clean water and sanitation projects, and road construction to help the sick in rural areas get to hospitals.

For his part, President Obama had nothing but praise for our health workers and the military, which has helped to take fatality numbers that were predicted to be dire (in September 2014, the Centers for Disease Control predicted that more than 1.4 million would die if there was no intervention) “down 95% from their peak.”

President Sirleaf expressed her gratitude to the American people, the military, front line responders and faith based institutions for helping in the fight against Ebola. She also said she was thankful that the United States did not succumb to the fear mongering that was strong during that time.

“We know that there was fear in this country, and we understood that. Because we feared for ourselves,” said Sirleaf. “We know that there was pressure here to be able to stop any travelling for people from Liberia. But I want to thank you for standing firm in resisting that pressure, and rallying the American people to see this for what it is.”

A federal jury last week awarded seven workers nearly $15 million in a racial discrimination suit after their bosses reportedly segregated them and called them “lazy, stupid Africans.” The workers took action and refused to become further victimized by a culture steeped in racism.

Six of the plaintiffs are Black, many from Mali [in West Africa]. One plaintiff is a White whistle-blower who was fired for challenging racist practices of the California-based company. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in 2010.

“I thought I was back South again with the same old racist attitudes,” said plaintiff Ernie Duke, who was raised in Missouri.

The verdict against Matheson Trucking and Matheson Flight Extenders Inc. included $14 million in punitive damages, said attorney Lynn Feiger, who was among those representing the workers. The company handles and transports mail for the Postal Service and private vendors, including United Parcel Service and FedEx.

An attorney for Matheson told the Denver Post that the company plans to appeal the decision, and that the company “prides itself on hiring and employing a highly diverse workforce consisting of men and women of different races and cultures.”

The suit alleges that racism ran unchecked at the warehouse. Reports 9News in Colorado:

According to the lawsuit, black employees worked on one side of the warehouse and whites worked on the other side. White supervisors and staff were accused of calling employees racial epithets and “lazy, stupid Africans.”

The judgment includes $318,000 in back pay for employees who were fired, furloughed or had their hours cut because of their race, Justin Plaskov, the plaintiff’s attorney told the Post. An additional $650,000 was awarded for emotional distress. Also, Matheson probably will have to pay the plaintiffs’ legal costs, the report says. A company lawyer said Matheson plans to appeal, according to 9News.

President from Nigeria Goodluck Johnathan arrives for the inauguration ceremony of the newly re-elected South African President in Pretoria, South Africa, 24 May 2014.

Nigeria is postponing presidential and legislative elections until March 28 because security forces fighting Boko Haram extremists cannot ensure voters’ safety around the country, the electoral commission announced Saturday in a decision likely to infuriate the opposition.

Officials in President Goodluck Jonathan‘s government have been calling for weeks for the postponement, saying the commission is not ready to hold what promises to be the most tightly contested presidential vote in the history of Africa’s biggest democracy.

“Many people will be very angry and annoyed,” Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman Attahiru Jega told a news conference Saturday night. “I want to assure all Nigerians, no one is forcing us to make this decision, this is a very weighty decision.”

He said the commission had considered holding elections outside of the four northeastern states most affected by the uprising by Boko Haram Islamic militants, but decided that the likelihood of an inconclusive presidential election would be “very, very high.”

Nigerian elections traditionally are violent and several people already have died in clashes. Some 800 people were killed in protests in the predominantly Muslim north after 2011 elections when Jonathan beat former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari. Jonathan is a Christian from a minority tribe in the mainly Christian south. Buhari is a Muslim northerner.

Both men are facing off again and supporters of both are threatening violence if their candidate does not win this year’s contest, one analysts say is too close to call since opposition parties for the first time formed a coalition led by Buhari.

A statement from Jonathan’s party commended the postponement but blamed it on the commission, saying it is suffering “numerous logistical problems and numerous internal challenges.”

Buhari’s coalition said it was holding an emergency meeting to discuss the implications of “this major setback for Nigerian democracy.” It appealed to all Nigerians “to remain calm and desist from violence.”

Jega told reporters that national security advisers and intelligence officers have said security forces need six weeks to conduct “a major operation” against Boko Haram and cannot also safeguard the elections.

He said it would be “highly irresponsible” to ignore that advice and endanger the lives and security of electoral personnel and materials, voters and observers as well as the prospects for free, fair and credible elections.

Millions could be disenfranchised if Boko Haram continues to hold a large swath of the northeast and commit mayhem that has left 1.5 million people homeless.

The postponement comes amid a major offensive against the exremists joined by Chad and Nigerian warplanes and ground troops that has driven the insurgents out of a dozen towns and villages in the past 10 days. Even stronger military strikes involving more neighboring countries are planned.

African Union officials ended a three-day meeting Saturday in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, finalizing details to deploy by next month an 8,750-strong force from Nigeria and its four neighbors to combat the growing regional threat posed by Boko Haram.

Nigeria’s home-grown extremist group has responded with attacks on one town in Cameroon and two in Niger this week. Officials said more than 100 civilians were killed and 500 wounded in Cameroon. Niger said about 100 insurgents and one civilian died in attacks Friday. Several security forces from both countries were killed.

The insurgents also have launched three attacks within a week on Maiduguri, the biggest city in the northeast, which thousands of people were fleeing Saturday, overcrowding buses, trucks and cars with bodies and belongings.

“We fear the violence that could erupt during the elections more than the threats of Boko Haram,” said Mojo Okechukwu, a 45-year-old vehicle spare parts dealer and Christian from the south who has lived in Maiduguri for 20 years.

International concern has increased along with the death toll: Some 10,000 killed in the uprising in the past year compared to 2,000 in the four previous years, according to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.

The United States had been urging Nigeria to press ahead with the voting. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Nigeria two weeks ago and said that “one of the best ways to fight back against Boko Haram” was by holding credible and peaceful elections, on time.

“It’s imperative that these elections happen on time as scheduled,” Kerry said.

Elections in 2011 were postponed until April. May 29 is the deadline for a new government to be installed.

The postponement also will give the commission a chance to deliver more voter cards: Jega said that by Friday, only 45.8 million of the 68.8 million cards needed to vote had been collected. Nigeria does not have a working postal service, though it has Africa’s biggest economy.

Jonathan’s party has won every election since decades of military rule ended in 1999. But the failure of the military to curb the 5-year Islamic uprising, mounting corruption and an economy hit by slumping oil prices have hurt the president of Africa’s biggest oil producer and most populous nation of about 170 million.

]]>http://newsone.com/3089874/nigeria-postpones-presidential-elections-boko-haram/feed/39rthangel73President from Nigeria Goodluck Johnathan (L) arrives with his wife for the inauguration ceremony of the newly re-elected South African President in Pretoria, South Africa, 24 May 2014. Charismatic but scandal-prone, South Africa's leader Jacob Zuma is a former herdboy who could stake a claim to Ronald Reagan's title of 'Teflon president' as he is sworn in for a second term today. AFP PHOTO / POOL / MUJAHID SAFODIEN (Photo credit should read MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP/Getty Images)Inonge Wina Is Zambia’s First Female Vice President!http://newsone.com/3086197/inonge-wina-zambia/
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President Edgar Lungu has appointed Zambia’s first female vice president, Inonge Wina (pictured), and she is making history as the first female to hold such a high-ranking political position in the republic, according to All Africa.

Wina was the wife of the late-freedom fighter Arthur Wina, who played a pivotal role in the country’s liberation struggles and passed away in 1995.

The 73-year-old 13th vice president of Zambia has always been fueled by community work. Wina began volunteering for various grassroots movements as far back as the early ’70s but at the top of her agenda was her dedication to championing women’s rights.

Wina was instrumental in the creation of a victim’s support unit under the auspices of the Zambian police. In 2000, Wina was also at the helm of the women’s movement in the Red Ribbon Campaign in defence of the Zambian Constitution.

Wina was elected to the Zambian Parliament of Nalolo Constituency back in 2001 and has chaired a number of portfolio committees, including the Committee on Human Rights Gender and Governance and Women Parliamentary Caucus. In 2006, she tried to regain her Parliamentary seat but lost. More than two years ago, Wina attempted to campaign for a Parliamentary seat under the Patriotic Front ticket and won.

Wina was included in the late-President Michael Sata’s initial 18-member cabinet as Minister of Chiefs and Traditional Affairs. In March of last year, Sata revamped the gender cabinet division, turning it into a full ministry, with Wina serving as Minister of Gender.

We wish you well, our sister!

]]>http://newsone.com/3086197/inonge-wina-zambia/feed/41winaionerloganInonge WinaAfter Ebola Cases Have Dropped Down To Five, There’s Now A Vaccine On The Wayhttp://newsone.com/3084332/ebola-vaccine-in-liberia/
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A medical worker checks the temperature of a girl at a house under quarantine in Omega town, a suburb of Monrovia, on January 21, 2015. One of the child’s relatives had died of the virus. The World Health Organization’s latest numbers are that 8,688 people had died of Ebola, among a cumulative total of 21,759 cases.

The West African nation of Liberia has just five remaining confirmed cases of Ebola, a senior health official from that country said on Friday. The official also said that Liberia could be free of the virus by the end of next month, reports Reuters.

Liberia – a country founded in the early 1800s by Americans for former slaves and their descendants – was once the epicenter of Ebola, with more than 300 cases per week, according to the World Health Organization. In total, more than 8,600 people have died from the deadly disease, mostly in the countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The significant decline in infection rates is mostly due to the swift international response and a public awareness campaign.

Ironically, now that the disease has reached a “turning point,” there is an experimental vaccine that is headed for Liberia next week. Alas, it will be hard to determine the vaccine’s effectiveness since the numbers of Ebola infection have declined so precipitously.

The trial is being carried out by the National Institutes of Health in the US, which will vaccinate 30,000 people. Only one-third will get the candidate vaccine; others will get a routine vaccine against another disease, such as measles. The investigators will be looking to see whether there are further cases of infection in the control group than among those who were given the potential Ebola vaccine.

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chairman of global vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline, said getting to the point of shipping the vaccine, due to arrive in Liberia on Friday, was a major achievement.

In this Thursday Nov. 27, 2014 photo, children displaced after attacks by Boko Haram, play in the camp of internal displaced people, in Yola, Nigeria. Seven children have been reunited with parents lost in the chaos of attacks in Nigeria’s northeastern Islamic insurgency but hundreds more remain alone, officials say of youngsters who have no idea if their families are alive or dead. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

YOLA, Nigeria — Hundreds of bodies — too many to count — remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International suggested Friday is the “deadliest massacre” in the history of Boko Haram.

Mike Omeri, the government spokesman on the insurgency, said fighting continued Friday for Baga, a town on the border with Chad where insurgents seized a key military base on Jan. 3 and attacked again on Wednesday.

“Security forces have responded rapidly, and have deployed significant military assets and conducted airstrikes against militant targets,” Omeri said in a statement.

District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women, and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.

“The human carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists in Baga was enormous,” Muhammad Abba Gava, a spokesman for poorly armed civilians in a defense group that fights Boko Haram, told The Associated Press.

He said the civilian fighters gave up on trying to count all the bodies. “No one could attend to the corpses and even the seriously injured ones who may have died by now,” Gava said.

An Amnesty International statement said there are reports the town was razed and as many as 2,000 people killed.

The previous bloodiest day in the uprising involved soldiers gunning down unarmed detainees freed in a March 14, 2014, attack on Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri city. Amnesty said then that satellite imagery indicated more than 600 people were killed that day.

In this Thursday Nov. 27, 2014 photo, children displaced after attacks by Boko Haram, line up in the camp of internal displace people, in Yola, Nigeria. Seven children have been reunited with parents lost in the chaos of attacks in Nigeria’s northeastern Islamic insurgency but hundreds more remain alone, officials say of youngsters who have no idea if their families are alive or dead. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba, file)

The 5-year insurgency killed more than 10,000 people last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. More than a million people are displaced inside Nigeria and hundreds of thousands have fled across its borders into Chad, Cameroon, and Nigeria.

Emergency workers said this week they are having a hard time coping with scores of children separated from their parents in the chaos of Boko Haram’s increasingly frequent and deadly attacks.

Just seven children have been reunited with parents in Yola, capital of Adamawa state, where about 140 others have no idea if their families are alive or dead, said Sa’ad Bello, the coordinator of five refugee camps in Yola.

He said he was optimistic that more reunions will come as residents return to towns that the military has retaken from extremists in recent weeks.

Suleiman Dauda, 12, said he ran into the bushes with neighbors when extremists attacked his village, Askira Uba, near Yola last year.

“I saw them kill my father, they slaughtered him like a ram. And up until now I don’t know where my mother is,” he told The Associated Press at Daware refugee camp in Yola.

The Culture Ministry explained its decision for the first time in a statement issued a few days after the ban was announced. It said the film put forth a reading of Egypt’s history that is at odds with the story of Moses told by the world’s monotheistic religions. Egypt is a conservative country with a Muslim majority and a sizable Christian minority.

The ministry said the movie inaccurately depicts ancient Egyptians as “savages” who kill and hang Jews, arguing that hanging did not exist in ancient Egypt. It said the film also presents a “racist” depiction of Jews as a people who mounted an armed rebellion. The ministry said religious scriptures present Jews as weak and oppressed.

Censors also objected to the “intentional gross historical fallacies that offend Egypt and its pharaonic ancient history in yet another attempt to Judaize Egyptian civilization, which confirms the international Zionist fingerprints all over the film,” the statement said.

The statement also objected to the depiction of God as a child, which also drew criticism in the West.

The ministry said it had convened two committees — one of censors and one of archaeologists — to review the film. The committee of archeologists agreed with the decision to ban the film because it showed “a false and wrong mental image of Egypt’s history,” the ministry said.

Artistic works dealing with religion are often banned in the Muslim world because religious scholars argue that the depiction of prophets is unacceptable. Such works are also often at odds with the Islamic portrayal of biblical prophets, which itself often diverges from their portrayal in Judaism and Christianity. According to Islam, for example, Jesus was not crucified, and the prophet Abraham was ordered to sacrifice Ishmael, not Isaac.

“Noah,” another Hollywood biblical epic, was banned in Egypt and much of the Muslim world due to its depiction of prophets and fears it would offend viewers. Perceived insults to Islam have in the past sparked protests and deadly violence.

Muslim countries have also censored movies over graphic sex scenes and portrayals of homosexuality.

The United Arab Emirates also decided to ban “Exodus: Gods & Kings.” Juma al-Leem, of the National Media Council, told The Associated Press the movie contained historical and religious errors that are not in Islam or in the Bible. “We respect all religions, not just Islam,” al-Leem said.

]]>http://newsone.com/3079312/exodus-the-movie-banned-in-egypt/feed/10rthangel73Exodus_640Ebola Vaccine May Be Ready as Early as January 2015http://newsone.com/3074615/ebola-vaccine-may-be-ready-as-early-as-january-2015/
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A baby receives a vaccine during a routine doctor’s visit at the Kuntorloh Community Health Centre in the outskirts of Freetown on November 14, 2014. Ebola-hit Sierra Leone faces social and economic disaster as gains made since the country’s ruinous civil war are wiped out by the epidemic, according to a major study. (FRANCISCO LEONG/AFP/Getty Images)

After the death of nearly 7,000 Africans and one American from the deadly Ebola virus, there is heartening news on the vaccine front.

The U.S. government through the National Institutes of Health and British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has developed a promising new Ebola vaccine, which could be ready as early as January 2015.

In the clinical trials, which took place at the NIH in Maryland, of the 20 adults who received the vaccine, all produced an immune response through anti-Ebola antibodies. There have been no serious reported side effects.

“Based on these positive results from the first human trial of this candidate vaccine, we are continuing our accelerated plan for larger trials to determine if the vaccine is efficacious in preventing Ebola infection,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The adults, volunteers ages 18 to 50, were split into two groups. Half received an intramuscular injection of vaccine at a lower dose and 10 received the same vaccine at a higher dose, the NIH said. Researchers tested the volunteers’ blood at two weeks and four weeks after vaccination to determine if anti-Ebola antibodies had been produced.All 20 volunteers developed such antibodies within four weeks of receiving the vaccine, with levels higher in those who were given the higher-dose vaccine.

If further clinical trials result in an effective vaccine, health care workers who treat those with Ebola will likely be the first to receive it.

The highly infectious Ebola virus has spread to 16,169 mostly in the countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The three West African nations have been hardest hit, according to the World Health Organization.

Wasila Tasi’u, 14, speaks with an unidentified defence counsel outside the courtroom during a 30-minute break during her first day of trial at Kano state High Court in the village of Gezawa, Nigeria, outside Kano on October 30, 2014. She is facing one-count murder charge for allegedly killing her groom and three friends by poisoning the food she prepared for a feast after their wedding in Dansoro village on April 5. (Aminu Abubakar/AFP/Getty Images)

KANO, Nigeria (AP) — The father of a 14-year-old child bride accused of murdering her husband said Thursday he was appealing to a Nigerian court to spare his daughter the death sentence.

Wasilat Tasi’u (pictured left) is on trial for the murder of her 35-year-old husband, Umar Sani, who died after eating food that Tasi’u allegedly laced with rat poison.

“We are appealing to the judge to consider Wasilat’s plea,” her father, Isyaku Tasi’u, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

On Wednesday witnesses told the High Court in Gezawa, a town 60 miles outside Nigeria’s second largest city of Kano, that Tasi’u killed her husband two weeks after their wedding in April. Three others allegedly died after eating the poisoned meal.

The prosecution, led by Lamido Soron-Dinki, senior state council from the Kano State Ministry of Justice, is seeking the death penalty.

The case calls into question the legality of trying a 14-year-old for murder under criminal law and the rights of child brides, who are common in the poverty-stricken, predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria region.

“She was married to a man that she didn’t love. She protested but her parents forced her to marry him,” Zubeida Nagee, a women’s rights activist in Kano, told AP. Nagee and other activists have written a letter of protest to the Kano state deputy governor.

Nagee said Tasi’u was a victim of systematic abuse endured by millions of girls in the region. Activists say the blend of traditional customs, Islamic law and Nigeria’s constitutional law poses a challenge when advocating for the rights of young girls in Nigeria.

Justice Mohammed Yahaya adjourned the court until December 22. Tasi’u is in state juvenile custody.

People are treated at the General hospital in Potiskum, Nigeria, Monday, Nov. 10, 2014, following a suicide bomb attack at Government Science Technical College Potiskum. Survivors say a suicide bomber disguised in a school uniform has detonated explosives at a high school assembly in northeast Nigeria, and a morgue worker says 48 students have been killed. (AP Photo/Adamu Adamu)

A female suicide bomber detonated a bomb at a Federal College of Education Wednesday morning, killing at least three people, according to the BBC.

The bomber exploded outside of a packed lecture hall at a university in Kontagora. Lecturer Andrew Randa claims to have seen four bodies, although the casualty figures are still unclear.

Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist group that has been active in northern Nigeria since 2009, has been confirmed as responsible for the bombing. The violent group have declared a caliphate, or Islamic state, across northeastern Nigeria.

This is the second bombing by the terrorist group to occur this week in Nigeria. The first bombing happened at a secondary school, Government Science School, on Monday (pictured) in Yobe State. The bomber, who wore a school uniform, bombed students as they waited in the assembly hall, killing 48 students and injuring 79.

]]>http://newsone.com/3070574/nigeria-suicide-bombing/feed/1bombingcinemasaibombingBurkina Faso President Stepping Down May Be Beginning Of Africa’s New Revolutionhttp://newsone.com/3069404/burkina-faso-protest/
http://newsone.com/3069404/burkina-faso-protest/#commentsFri, 07 Nov 2014 20:16:03 +0000http://newsone.com/?p=3069404]]>

In this photo taken Thursday, Oct. 30, 2014, protesters shout out as they go on a rampage near the parliament building in Burkina Faso as people protest against their longtime President Blaise Compaore who seeks another term, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Protesters stormed the parliament Thursday, dragging furniture and computers onto the street and setting the main chamber ablaze, in the most significant challenge to the president’s rule during his 27 years in power. (AP Photo/Theo Renaut)

The world may well be witnessing another African revolution.

After ousting President Blaise Campaore (pictured below) one week ago in a two-day uprising that included setting fire to parliament and storming the country’s state-run television station, citizens in Burkina Faso are now working to forge a new government for their country.

What some are calling the Black spring, inspired by insurrections in countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Libya during the 2011 Arab spring, could be a force that rolls through Africa and ushers in a new era of leadership throughout the continent.

While Burkina Faso is a small francophone country that few would likely be able to find on a map, the West African nation’s popular rebellion may be the catalyst for a wave of revolt poised to take numerous countries.

“This is a ‘sub-Saharan Spring’ and it must continue against all the presidents who are trying to hang on to power in Africa,” Burkinabe student Lucien Trinnoutold Reuters on Friday.

The protests began when Campaore sought to amend the country’s constitution to allow himself a third presidential term, after 27 years in office.

The constitution allows only two five-year terms, but Campaore had already served as president since 1987 when he took power in a military coup. His regime was often accused of corruption and authoritarian rule and had made itself virtually impossible to defeat in an election by using coercion, repression, and fraud to stack elections in his favor.

In recent years, says Ernest Harsch, a research scholar at the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University, the government had also been accused of forcing businesses to contribute quite lavishly to Campaore and his political allies, giving them the ability to outspend any potential challengers, which often meant simply buying them out of the race.

“People around Campaore – his family, their hangers-on – were getting visibly very rich through their corruption and other pilfering of state resources,” Harsch told NewsOne.

The corruption occurred against a backdrop of poverty that has inundated Burkina Faso throughout Campaore’s rule.

It is 183rd out of 186 countries on the U.N. human development index and despite an economy that grew at a rate of 7 percent in 2012 (about twice the rate of the United States’ growth rate), half of the country’s 17 million people still lived in poverty.

“So that gap between the poverty that everybody was living and the very visible lavish lifestyles of those in the elites was just becoming more and more grating,” says Harsh, who is also the author of “Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary,” a book about the country’s former leader who was overthrown by Campaore.

“The move to extend the presidential term further just was the final trigger that set off people’s anger.”

What has largely kept major revolutions from happening in sub-Saharan Africa is a lack of tools to organize and mobilize large populations. But with the growth of the middle class in some countries and the expansion of Internet access and other social networking technologies, more people are joining large-scale protest movements.

“We did not witness an African Spring, but that does not mean we are safe,” Hamisi Kigwangalla, a member of parliament in Tanzania, which borders Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo wrote in July.”We have our own generation of corrupt and autocratic leaders and bureaucrats, or what George Ayittey named the ‘Hippo Generation.’ There are growing inequities, rising rates of unemployment, and an unbearable cost of living. We also have an active youth that constitutes a huge chunk of our population, as well as a rapidly expanding literate and urbanised middle class.”

When the Arab Spring erupted in 2011, many predicted that the revolutions would move south to countries like Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda that had embattled leaders and regular demonstrations against issues that ranged from institutional corruption to growing income inequality and abuse by military and police forces. A major factor in the uprisings of 2011 was the countries’ large youth populations, which led the protests and mobilized political groups.

Those same elements are present in countries throughout Africa, but it often goes unreported.

“Many [African] countries are having protests. It’s a very contentious continent,” says Harsch. “A lot of it does not get reported unless it gets very political, unless there’s violence, and unless it comes to the brink of bringing down a government.”

But as more Africans grow impatient with their rulers, the clock may be ticking on many of the continent’s longest-serving officials. The people in some of the poorest and most-corrupt nations now have an example of how to execute a swift changing of the guard.

“Certainly activists will be looking to Burkina Faso for inspiration, maybe for lessons about how to organize,” says Harsch, “because [protesters] were well-organized in Burkina, at the elite level, but especially at the grass roots.”

Sata was in London at King Edward III hospital reportedly being treated for his illness. The head of state had reportedly left Zambia for medical treatment last week accompanied by his wife and family members. Whispers about Sata being “deathly ill” had been circulating ever since he dropped out of public view some months ago. The country’s opposition groups had begun to question whether Sata was even fit to continue to lead his country of 15 million, Africa’s biggest copper producer and a land where poverty reigns supreme.

Oftentimes referred to as “Mr. King Cobra” for his sharp-tongued comments, Sata, a longtime opposition leader became president of Zambia in 2011. Sata was said to have had a mixed relationship with Chinese investors in his country, oftentimes criticizing them as exploitative. He had also come to be known as someone who was a no-nonsense man of action by his supporters as evidenced by a heated exchange, where he once publicly reprimanded his entire cabinet, threatening to collapse his own government if they did not do a better job.

Critics summed up the former policeman, London railway porter, trade unionist, and taxidermist as an authoritarian populist.

Meanwhile, Vice President Guy Scott will assume the role as leader of the Republic of Zambia, until another candidate can be elected, which according to Zambian law, will be held within 90 days of the President’s death.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared Nigeria and Senegal Ebola-free after the West African countries have reported no new cases of the virulent killer after a 42-day period, twice the maximum incubation period of Ebola to detect possible unreported cases of infection.

Interestingly enough, reportedly, top epidemiologists in Nigeria have performed their due diligence with regards to tracing back the disease’s entry into the country and all confirmed cases of Ebola were linked back to a Liberian air traveler, who brought the virus in to the republic on July 20th, according to the WHO.

The WHO has confirmed that the transmission of the virus in to Senegal was as a result of a young man, who had traveled to Dakar by road from Guinea, where he had direct contact with an Ebola victim. The case was confirmed back on August 29th. The WHO credits both the country’s government, under the leadership of President Mack Sally and the Minister of Dr. Awa Coll-Seck for very quickly working hand-in-hand to stop the virus from overtaking the land.

However other West African countries such as Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are still being greatly impacted by the outbreak as new cases continue to spring up every day. Ebola has killed some 4,546 people across these three worst-affected countries.

While the outbreak is now officially over in Nigeria and Senegal, the countries’ geographical positions still, however, makes them highly vulnerable to additional imported cases of Ebola. Both countries reportedly will continue to remain on alert for any suspected cases by strict compliance with WHO guidelines.

UPDATED 10/17/14, 3:43 P.M. EST: According to Nigerian government officials, in addition to the ceasefire, the nearly 300 schoolgirls — who were kidnapped as they took exams in Chibok — will be released, reports the BBC.

Nigerian presidential aide Hassan Tukur told BBC Focus on Africa that the agreement was sealed after a month of negotiations, mediated by Chad.

As part of the talks, a government delegation twice met representatives of the Islamist group.

Mr Tukur said Boko Haram had announced a unilateral ceasefire on Thursday and the government had responded.

“They’ve assured us they have the girls and they will release them,” he said.

“I am cautiously optimistic.”

While the Nigerian government hasn’t revealed what concessions they have made to secure the girls, they have said that they will be having a meeting next week to hash out the particulars of the release.

__________________________________

ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigeria’s government and Islamic extremists from Boko Haram have agreed to an immediate cease-fire, officials said Friday, in a move that could end five years of insurgency that has killed thousands and left hundreds of thousands homeless in Africa’s most populous nation and its biggest oil producer.

The fate of more than 200 missing schoolgirls abducted by the insurgents six months ago remains unclear. Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade said their release is still being negotiated.

Boko Haram negotiators “assured that the schoolgirls and all other people in their captivity are all alive and well,” Mike Omeri, the government spokesman on the insurgency, told a news conference.

The chief of defense staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, announced the truce and ordered his troops to immediately comply with the agreement.

“Already, the terrorists have announced a cease-fire in furtherance of their desire for peace. In this regard, the government of Nigeria has, in similar vein, declared a cease-fire,” Omeri said.

There was no immediate word from Boko Haram, which limits its announcements almost exclusively to videos of its leader Abubakar Shekau. Last year, when a government minister charged with negotiations announced an agreement, the group quickly published a video denying it. Leader Shekau said at that time that whoever the government negotiated with did not speak for him and that he would never talk to infidels.

It could take days for word to get to fighters of Boko Haram, which is broken into several groups. They include foreigners from neighboring countries Chad, Cameroon and Niger, where the insurgents also have camps.

There have been unconfirmed reports that at least some of the girls have been carried across borders, and some forced to marry their captors. A Boko Haram video in May showed two of the girls explaining why they had converted from Christianity to Islam.

Omeri confirmed there had been direct negotiations this week about the release of the abducted girls. Another official said the talks took place in neighboring Chad. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to reporters.

Boko Haram had been demanding the release of detained extremists in exchange for the girls. President Goodluck Jonathan originally said he could not countenance a prisoner swap.

Boko Haram – the group’s nickname means “education is sinful” – attracted international condemnation with the April 15 kidnapping of 276 girls and young women writing final examinations at a boarding school in the remote northeastern town of Chibok.

Dozens escaped on their own in the first couple of days, but 219 remain missing. Their plight drew protests around the world with demands that the military and government get them free.

The United States, Britain, France and China sent experts to help find the girls, and U.S. drones flew over the area they are believed captive. But Badeh said months ago that they feared a military campaign to free the girls would lead to many of their deaths.

Dozens more schoolgirls and boys, young women and men have been kidnapped by the extremists in a 5-year-old insurgency.

Jonathan told the United Nations last month that the extremists have killed 13,000 civilians.

Hundreds of thousands have been driven from their homes, many of them farmers, causing a food emergency in the northeast of the country where the insurgency is centered.

But Boko Haram has struck elsewhere, with suicide and car bombing attacks in northern cities, in Abuja, the capital in the center of the country, and one failed car bomb in Lagos, the commercial capital in the southwest.

This week, nearly 100 soldiers have been on trial before a court-martial for mutiny and conspiracy to mutiny by refusing to fight the insurgents.

Demoralized troops have told The Associated Press that Boko Haram is better equipped and better armed, and that their officers steal some of their pay. They complain that they are abandoned to fight in the bush with no food or water.

In August, Boko Haram began seizing and holding territory where it declared a caliphate, apparently copying the Islamic State group fighting in Iraq and Syria.

But the tide appears to have turned in recent weeks, with the military wrestling some towns from the extremists and reporting to have killed hundreds of Boko Haram fighters.

French President Francois Hollande on Friday welcomed the announcement of an accord on the Nigerian schoolgirls as “good news.” He said during a press conference in Paris that “we have information that allows us to think that (the release of the girls) could happen in the coming hours and days”. He didn’t give details.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health officials Tuesday laid out worst-case and best-case scenarios for the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, warning that the number of infected people could explode to at least 1.4 million by mid-January – or peak well below that, if efforts to control the outbreak are ramped up.

The widely varying projections by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were based on conditions in late August and do not take into account a recent international surge in medical aid for the stricken region. That burst has given health authorities reason for some optimism.

“I’m confident the most dire projections are not going to come to pass,” CDC chief Dr. Tom Frieden said in releasing the report.

About 5,800 illnesses and over 2,800 deaths have been counted since the first cases were reported six months ago. But international health authorities have warned that the crisis is probably far worse in reality, with many corpses and infected people hidden or unreported.

The CDC, for example, estimated that the real number of cases, reported and unreported, could reach 21,000 by Sept. 30 in just two of the hardest-hit countries, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

In its worst-case scenario, the CDC said the number of illnesses in those nations could hit 1.4 million by Jan. 20.

But the CDC also said that the epidemic in both countries could be almost ended by Jan. 20, by aggressively isolating the sick, either in hospitals or at home, and by taking steps to reduce the spread of the disease during burials.

“A surge now can break the back of the epidemic,” Frieden said.

The CDC did not give an estimate of how many Ebola cases overall could be expected under the best-case scenario. But it said the number of new cases per day could be fewer than 300 by mid-January, instead of the thousands feared under the grimmer projections.

The World Health Organization released its own estimates Tuesday, also warning that cases could soar dramatically. The U.N. agency, whose estimates were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine, said 21,000 people could be infected in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone by early November.

WHO said the death rate has been about 70 percent among hospitalized patients.

“This is a bit like weather forecasting. We can do it a few days in advance, but looking a few weeks or months ahead is very difficult,” said Christopher Dye, WHO director of strategy and co-author of the organization’s study. He added: “We’re beginning to see some signs in the response that gives us hope this increase in cases won’t happen.”

Last week, the U.S. announced it would build more than a dozen medical centers in Liberia and send 3,000 troops. Britain and France have also pledged to build treatment centers in Sierra Leone and Guinea, and the World Bank and UNICEF have sent more than $1 million worth of supplies to the region.

Sierra Leone on Sunday completed a three-day lockdown in what was believed to be the most dramatic disease-control measure taken since the plague was ravaging Europe in the Middle Ages. The nation’s president said it was so successful that a second one is being considered.

In an indication that the crisis is worse than the official numbers suggest, health teams that went door-to-door in Sierra Leone identified 130 confirmed cases of Ebola and 70 suspected cases. In addition, 92 bodies were found, though it was not clear how many had Ebola.

The CDC’s worst-case numbers seem “somewhat pessimistic” and flawed for not accounting for the infection-control efforts already underway, said Dr. Richard Wenzel, a Virginia Commonwealth University scientist who formerly led the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

Another outside expert questioned WHO’s projections and said Ebola’s spread would ultimately be slowed not only by containment measures but by changes in people’s behavior.

“Ebola outbreaks usually end when people stop touching the sick,” said Dr. Armand Sprecher, an infectious-disease specialist at Doctors Without Borders.

Local health officials have launched campaigns to educate people about Ebola’s symptoms and to warn them not to touch the sick or the dead.

]]>http://newsone.com/3054567/us-warns-that-ebola-could-infect-1-4-million/feed/10Barack ObamakirstenwestsavaliobamaMore than 5,000 Dead In Central African Republichttp://newsone.com/3051290/more-than-5000-dead-in-central-african-republic/
http://newsone.com/3051290/more-than-5000-dead-in-central-african-republic/#commentsSat, 13 Sep 2014 02:00:17 +0000http://newsone.com/?p=3051290]]>GUEN, Central African Republic (AP) — There are no headstones to mark these graves, no loving words, nothing to tell the world who lies in these two giant pits full of bodies, or why. Yet a handful of village elders are determined that nobody will be forgotten.

These old men, their eyes clouded by cataracts and their ears hacked by machete blades, sit on dirty straw mats at a church and gather the names of the dead from broken survivors. They write each name carefully in Arabic with faded blue ink on lined paper, neatly folded and stored in the pocket of one man’s tattered kaftan. The list is four pages long.

At least 5,186 people have died in Central African Republic since fighting between Muslims and Christians started in December, according to an Associated Press tally gleaned from more than 50 of the hardest-hit communities and the capital, Bangui. That’s well more than double the death toll of about 2,000 cited by the United Nations back in April, when it approved a peacekeeping mission. The deaths have mounted steadily since, with no official record.

As the U.N. prepares to go into the Central African Republic next week, the death toll underscores how the aid is coming too late for thousands of victims. The about 2,000 extra troops to boost African forces fall short of the almost 7,000 authorized in April, with the rest expected by early 2015. Yet the conflict has turned out to be far more deadly than it was then, and warnings of potential mass carnage from former colonizer France and from the U.N. itself have gone unheeded.

“The international community said it wanted to put a stop to the genocide that was in the making. But months later, the war has not stopped, ” says Joseph Bindoumi, president of the Central African Human Rights League, who collects handwritten testimonies from relatives stapled together with photos of their slain loved ones.

“On the contrary, it has gotten worse. Today, towns that were not under severe threat back in April have become the sites of true disasters.”

___

Both life and death often go unrecorded in Central African Republic, a country of about 4.6 million that has long teetered on the edge of anarchy. Nobody knows just how many people have died in the grinding ethnic violence, and even the AP tally is almost certainly a fraction of the real toll.

The AP counted bodies and gathered numbers from dozens of survivors, priests, imams, human rights groups and local Red Cross workers, including those in a vast, remote swath of the west that makes up a third of the country. Many deaths here were not officially counted because the region is still dangerous and can barely be reached in torrential rains. Others were left out by overwhelmed aid workers but registered at mosques and at private Christian funerals.

The U.N. is not recording civilian deaths on its own, unlike in Iraq or Afghanistan, for example. And it took months to gather troops from different countries for the mission, which will take over from regional peacekeeping forces on Sept. 15, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the secretary-general.

“Mobilizing troops for peacekeeping mission takes time because it’s not like they’re waiting in New York for us,” Dujarric said Wednesday. “We have to go knock on doors for troops, for equipment, helicopters…”

The conflict started when Muslim rebels captured the capital last March, for the first time since independence from France in 1960. The rebels, known as the Seleka, killed hundreds, possibly thousands of Christians, leaving families to push the bodies of their loved ones to cemeteries in wheelbarrows and carts. Even when Christian militias forced the rebels to withdraw in late January, they killed as they went.

In the tiny Christian village of Nzakoun, where the only sounds after dark are of crickets and the occasional mango dropping on a rooftop, the roar of vehicles woke up 13-year-old Maximin Lassananyant in the dead of night in early February. Soon the gunshots rang out. The Seleka had come.

The rebels set ablaze more than two dozen houses. Then they went door-to-door, killing villagers and stealing everything they hadn’t destroyed.

Maximin stumbled out of the hut where he slept with his mother and two siblings into the darkness, with only the moon to light his path. He hid for two days in the bush, petrified. He prayed that his family was just hiding someplace else.

Then the other survivors from the village found him. They told him it was time to come home and bury his family. The stones of his home still reeked of blood, caked on the ground and the walls inside.

Now it is only Maximin and his father, a traumatized man of few words, who remain, along with another brother who was away that fateful night. The boy’s hands shake as he tries to write down the names of his family. He cannot bring himself to say them aloud.

A village chief has hand-printed the names of 22 buried victims on a weathered piece of paper from a classroom notebook. Maximin’s mother, Rachel, is No. 11 on the list of females, and his 5-year-old sister Fani is No. 13. His 7-year-old brother Boris is on the list of males. A separate list details the homes destroyed, the people missing.

The sound of an unknown vehicle passing in Nzakoun still sends families fleeing back into the forest.

___

It was only a matter of time — sometimes just hours — before the Christians took revenge.

The mounting hatred was fuelled in part by economic resentment. Muslims make up about 15 percent of the population, compared to Christians at 50 percent, yet Muslims ran the merchant class and the lucrative diamond business. As Christian militias took back control of town after town, they unleashed a violence believed to have left several thousands dead, mostly Muslims.

Soon after dawn one morning, Christian fighters stormed the outskirts of Guen, a town with a sizeable Muslim population because of the diamond mining nearby. They attacked the brick homes of Muslims, identifiable by fences traditionally put up all around them, and killed men in front of their children.

“We have suffered under the Seleka and now it is your turn,” they screamed at the Muslims.

Within hours, 23 people were dead.

Several days later, the Christian fighters stormed a house in town where dozens of Muslim men and boys had sought refuge. A few escaped. The rest were herded at gunpoint to a shady lawn beneath two large mango trees, recalls a survivor.

Here the terrified victims were ordered to lie on their stomachs. Then the militia leader, armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, began shooting them, one by one. He ordered his fighters to finish off the wounded with machete blows to the head.

In the end, 43 people were slain under the mango trees, including two 11-year-old boys.

A 10-year-old and a 13-year-old survived only by lying still amid the bloody corpses until darkness fell. Then they ran for their lives to a nearby town, according to other survivors, including the mother of one of the boys.

The lives of three Muslims in town were spared: They were the ones who transported the bludgeoned bodies to two mass graves on a wooden stretcher, still stained with blood months later.

A villager named Abakar lost four of his sons that day, all between the ages of 11 and 16. The thought of his boys awaiting certain death has him sobbing so hard he cannot speak. Even now he will only give his first name because he is so afraid that the militants will hunt him down.

“Each night before I go to sleep I pray to God that I don’t have nightmares about that day,” he chokes out between his sobs.

Two community leaders — both Christians — pleaded for the lives of the boys and men that day in Guen. They were told they too would be slain if they did not leave. They could not eat or sleep for days. “What more could we do?” they now say to each other, over and over.

Edmond Beina, the local leader of a Christian militia, is unrepentant. Everyone killed that day was a Seleka Muslim rebel, he says. Even the children.

Today, pages from holy Qurans blow through the grass at the house where the boys tried to hide. They are the only reminder of those who died.

___

The violence is now bubbling up in previously stable corners, hitting both Christians and Muslims. In Bambari, northeast of the capital, at least 149 people were killed in June and July alone, according to witnesses, including about 17 Christians sheltering at a Catholic church compound. And in the Mbres area in the north, Muslim rebels left at least 34 people dead in August.

About 20,000 Muslims are trapped in isolated communities across the nation, despite a mass exodus earlier this year, according to a U.N. report in August. Among them is Saidou Bouba, who waits outside the mayor’s office in the town of Boda.

Bouba had spent his entire life in this diamond town south of the capital. But when the Christian militia fighters burned his house down in early February, the 46-year-old herder knew it was time to leave.

So he and his family joined a group of 34 Muslim refugees heading for Cameroon. They took with them all their savings — some 300 cattle — to start a new life.

About 37 miles outside town, they stopped to rest beneath a tree. There, a group of heavily armed men on foot, wearing traditional Muslim clothing, opened fire on the crowd.

Bouba shouted in disbelief: “Why are you trying to harm your fellow Muslims?”

But they were not Muslims. They were Christian fighters wearing the clothes of their last victims. “Lie down, dogs!” the men shouted.

The last thing Bouba remembers is being knocked unconscious with a machete blow to the head.

When he awoke, he was surrounded by the bodies of his two wives and five children. Mama and Abdoulaye, both just 3 years old, Nafissa and Rassida, 6, and Mariam, 8, were all dead, their tiny heads bashed in with machetes.

Only Bouba and one other man survived. They sat among the 32 bodies for an entire day in shock before making their way back to town.

“I put everything now in the hands of God,” he says softly, his face and head still scarred by machete wounds from that awful day. “He gave my family to me and then he took them away.”

There are grieving fathers everywhere in this tiny enclave: Abakar Hissein has lost two sons, both shot to death, Ahmat earlier this year in Bangui and Ali on Aug. 20 in Boda. Hissein carried Ali’s body back in his own arms. His wife has been missing for five months — he thinks she has made it to neighboring Chad — and does not know yet another son is dead.

Even in death, there is no peace for the victims.

Earlier this summer, a Muslim man was buried at a cemetery in Boda, just a mile away from the zone where Muslims are barricaded.

Later that evening, after the sun set, his body was dug up from the ground and set on fire.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A doctor who became infected with Ebola while working in Liberia – the third American aid worker sickened with the virus – is sick but in stable condition and communicating with his caregivers at the Nebraska Medical Center.

Dr. Rick Sacra, 51, is being treated at a 10-bed special isolation unit, the largest of the United States’ four, officials said Friday. It was built to handle patients with highly infectious and deadly diseases, according to Dr. Mark Rupp, chief of the infectious diseases division at the center.

Sacra arrived at 6:38 a.m. Friday at the Omaha hospital. Sacra was wheeled on a gurney off the plane at Offutt Air Force Base, transferred to an ambulance and then wheeled into the hospital, said Rosanna Morris, chief nursing officer for the medical center.

Sacra was conscious Friday and was able to communicate with medical staff, Morris said.

The first two American aid workers infected by Ebola – Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol – have recovered since being flown to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment. Sacra came to Omaha instead of Atlanta because federal officials asked the medical center to treat him in order to prepare other isolation units to take more Ebola patients if needed.

Sacra, a doctor from Worcester, Massachusetts, who spent 15 years working at the Liberia hospital where he fell ill, said he felt compelled to return after hearing that two other missionaries with the North Carolina-based charity SIM with whom he’d worked were sick. He delivered babies at the hospital, and was not involved in the treatment of Ebola patients, so it’s unclear how he became infected with the virus.

An estimated 2,100 people have died during the outbreak, but Ebola has not been confirmed as the cause for all of the deaths.

Dr. Phil Smith, medical director of the Omaha unit, has said a team of 35 doctors, nurses and other medical staffers will provide Sacra with basic care, including ensuring he is hydrated and keeping his vital signs stable.

The team is discussing experimental treatments, including using blood serum from a patient who has recovered from Ebola, Smith said. There are no licensed drugs or vaccines for the disease, but about half a dozen are in development.

Rupp said he’s unaware whether Brantly and Writebol have been asked about donating blood serum for Sacra.

“These folks are friendly and know one another, and they would presumably be willing to help their compatriots,” Rupp said, adding a battery of tests must first be performed, including one to ensure that any blood is compatible with Sacra’s.

Doctors with the Omaha hospital have repeatedly said Sacra’s transfer to Omaha posed no threat to the public, noting Ebola is transmitted through close contact with an infected person.

SIM president Bruce Johnson said Friday that Sacra’s wife, Debbie, is making arrangements to care for their three sons and preparing to fly to Omaha this weekend.

“Rick would actually be somewhat embarrassed by all this attention,” Johnson said, adding tearfully that Sacra apologized to SIM officials in an email after he was diagnosed earlier this week. Sacra told them he knew an evacuation would be difficult.

“So I don’t expect one,” Sacra’s email said. “Jesus is right here with me in Liberia.”

A medical worker and police officer stand outside Mount Sinai Medical Center where a male patient with a high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms is undergoing testing for the Ebola virus following a recent trip to West Africa, Monday, Aug. 4, 2014, in New York. The report comes as officials at U.S. airports are watching travelers from Africa for flu-like symptoms that could be tied to the recent Ebola outbreak. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Friday sent Congress a request for $30 million to pay for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s efforts to help contain the Ebola outbreak in western Africa.

The administration wants the money added to a spending bill to keep government agencies running until mid-December and comes on top of $58 million it requested above current levels to speed the production of promising drugs to fight the deadly disease.

The White House is also seeking additional flexibility for the Homeland Security Department to cope with the thousands of unaccompanied Central American children still arriving at the southern border.

Meanwhile, it’s also telling lawmakers that it wants to include extending the charter of the Export-Import Bank in a must-do temporary spending bill that’s required to prevent a government shutdown at the end of the month. The bank helps foreign buyers purchase U.S. exports.

The requests are contained in White House budget office documents sent to Capitol Hill’s appropriations committees as they prepare the temporary funding measure slated for votes the next two weeks. The measure would freeze government agency budgets at current levels into December. The roster of so-called anomalies was requested to deal with urgent cases a budget freeze could not accommodate.

For instance, Friday’s $30 million request would pay for agency epidemiologists and intelligence officers who are tracing the spread of the disease in Africa, boosting the number of staff from 100 to 150 or more. It would also pay for support staff in the U.S.

An earlier $58 million request for the Centers for Disease Control would help the agency ramp up production and testing of the experimental drug ZMapp, which has shown promise in fighting the Ebola epidemic in western Africa. It would also help keep the development and manufacturing of two Ebola vaccines on track. The White House request seeks to use $10 million in unused balances at the Department of Health and Human Services to help with the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

The administration also is requesting flexibility for Customs and Border Protection to spend more money dealing with the influx of unaccompanied Central American children. Congress failed to pass President Barack Obama’s July request for $3.7 billion to address the crisis, though the House adopted a significantly scaled-back version.

The request also seeks permission for the Department of Health and Human Service to maintain higher spending rates to house and care for unaccompanied immigrant children but added that that’s just a stopgap solution until supplemental funding is approved later in the year.

The request to keep the Export-Import Bank alive comes as House GOP leaders seek to smooth over divisions between tea party lawmakers opposed to renewing the bank’s charter and more establishment, pro-business Republicans who support it. Critics say the bank benefits big corporations like Boeing because its foreign customers get to purchase exports at lower interest rates than they would otherwise pay. Supporters say boosting exports creates jobs.

GOP aides have privately signaled that some sort of extension of the bank’s charter is likely to be attached to the temporary funding bill.

The document also contains a request by the Pentagon to devote $250 million of its budget for overseas military operations to remove unexploded shells and other ordnance from training ranges in Afghanistan as U.S. ground troops withdraw. Otherwise, Afghan civilians could be at risk.

It seems no detail is too small. For instance, the request asks for authority to use unspent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention money to keep a freezer construction project on its Fort Collins, Colorado, campus on track.

A White House budget office spokeswoman and aides to the House and Senate Appropriations committees declined to comment on the requests. The House Appropriations Committee would like to unveil the spending measure by Tuesday night.

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — When the dreaded Ebola virus began infecting people in the Sierra Leone town of Kenema, Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan and his team were on the front lines. After stepping out of his protective suit following hours on a sweltering ward, he would jump on the phone to coordinate with the Ministry of Health, to deal with personnel issues and tend to hospital business.

He was jovial but forceful. When he walked into a room everyone looked to him for direction and he gave it decisively, said Daniel Bausch, an American doctor who worked with Khan.

But then Khan tested positive for Ebola at the end of July and died soon after. He is one of at least two leading doctors in Sierra Leone who have died in the outbreak, which has also hit Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal. The World Health Organization says it has sickened a higher proportion of medical staff than any other on record, with 240 contracting Ebola and more than half of them dying.

The toll on health workers was felt immediately by grieving and frightened colleagues and by patients who had fewer people to attend to them, and it will likely set back health care systems – poorly equipped amid rampant poverty to begin with – for years to come.

“These are people who were the backbone” of efforts to improve struggling health systems, said Bausch, a professor of tropical medicine at Tulane University. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone “are trying to dig themselves out of years of stalled or retrograde development and making some progress. This is setting them back immeasurably.”

Khan had been an expert in Lassa, which like Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever, meaning he brought tremendous expertise to the current outbreak. He was also key to improving Sierra Leone’s health system in general. The region’s weak health system infrastructure, along with poverty, helped fuel Ebola’s spread.

Modupeh Cole, a top physician at Connaught Hospital in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, also died of Ebola. He was one of only three senior doctors who supervised junior doctors at the hospital, said Dr. Oliver Johnson, a British doctor who has worked there for two years as part of the King’s Partnership Sierra Leone. Cole’s death will hobble the hospital and might render it unable to offer post-graduate specialist training, Johnson said.

The loss of senior doctors makes a huge impact because there are so few of them. Liberia has only one doctor for every 100,000 people, while Sierra Leone has two, according to World Health Organization statistics. In comparison, the U.S. has 245 doctors for every 100,000 people.

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are some of the world’s poorest countries and have histories of coups or civil war. Many of their brightest citizens, including medical professionals, had abandoned their countries and governments struggled to provide even the most basic services.

Even before the outbreak, it was common for family members of patients in a Sierra Leonean hospital to be asked to supply basic equipment themselves, popping out to a pharmacy to buy gloves for the doctors, syringes and over-the-counter pain-killers.

In Liberia, the government-run hospital in most counties is lucky to have one surgeon, on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to Dr. Frank Glover, an American medical missionary who has worked extensively in Liberia and who founded SHIELD in Africa, which is dedicated to improving health care. Most county hospitals do not have ambulances, X-ray machines or a lab to do blood work, he said.

Since the outbreak, many hospitals and clinics in Freetown and Liberia’s capital of Monrovia that are not involved in Ebola care have closed, as staff and patients fled out of fear they would get the virus. Liberia and Sierra Leone have seen health workers walk off the job to demand hazard pay and safer working conditions. That means malaria, typhoid and cholera cases are going untreated – a situation Doctors Without Borders called “an emergency within the emergency.”

Bausch recently found himself on an Ebola ward in Sierra Leone with only one other doctor and 55 patients because the nurses were all on strike.

“When we went in that day, it was a very emotional experience to try to meet the needs of so many people,” he said. “There’s people saying, you know, `Doctor, I’m hungry, I don’t have food,’ or, `I’m thirsty, I don’t have water.'”

Bausch believes he was working with Khan around the time that the Sierra Leonean doctor became infected – and for Bausch there was no “aha moment.” The mistake can be so small, no one sees or remembers it.

Bausch said the single most important thing the outbreak needs is more people – and not necessarily experts but people to clean wards and do laundry and help medical staff ensure they’re using their protective gear properly. That’s the best way to ensure patients are being taken care of and that health workers aren’t becoming so exhausted that they’re making the kinds of mistakes that can lead to infection.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Though noting persistent challenges, President Barack Obama heralded Africa as a continent on the rise and a growth market for U.S. businesses as he closed an unprecedented summit Wednesday aimed in part at fostering his own African legacy.

The summit also marked a rare return to Washington for former President George W. Bush, who launched a $15 billion HIV/AIDS initiative while in office and has made public health issues in Africa a priority since leaving the White House. Bush partnered with first lady Michelle Obama to host a daylong event for spouses of the African leaders.

“There’s not many things that convince me to come back to Washington,” said Bush, who now lives in Dallas and steers clear of politics. “The first lady’s summit, of course, is one.”

While Obama has continued Bush’s signature AIDS program, he has also been seeking his own legacy-building Africa initiatives. This week’s U.S.-Africa summit, which brought together leaders from more than 50 African nations, was seen as a cornerstone of that effort and Obama pledged to make the gathering a recurring event.

“Africa must know that they will always have a strong and reliable partner in the United States of America,” Obama said at a news conference marking the end of the three-day summit.

Much of the summit centered on boosting U.S. business ties with Africa, which is home to six of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies and a rapidly expanding middle class.

Yet the summit’s final day of discussions underscored the challenges that could undermine that economic growth. Health crises remain among Africa’s most pressing problems, including the current outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa.

Obama acknowledged that the public health systems in affected countries have been overwhelmed by the outbreak and said the U.S. was encouraging them to focus their efforts on rapidly identifying and isolating patients.

The president also pledged to expand security cooperation with African nations in order to address threats from terrorism and human trafficking, alluding to U.S. concerns that extremism in North Africa and the Sahel could destabilize the already volatile region.

“The entire world has a stake in the success of peacekeeping in Africa,” Obama said.

Before taking questions from reporters, Obama convened a session with African leaders on good governance, universal rights and the strengthening of civil societies. And he defended U.S. engagement with countries that have problematic records on those fronts, arguing that America’s involvement can help spur those nations to do better.

“We find that in some cases, engaging a country that generally is a good partner but is not performing optimally when it comes to all the various categories of human rights, that we can be effective in working with them on certain areas and criticizing them and trying to elicit improvements in other areas,” Obama said.

Among the leaders treated to an elaborate reception the night before at the White House were figures such as Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who has pleaded innocent regarding his alleged role in organizing violence that left more than 1,000 people dead. Obama has also spoken out repeatedly against recent laws passed in some African countries targeting lesbians and gays, including Uganda, which was represented at the summit.

As Obama participated in summit meetings, his wife convened a gathering of African first ladies, talking about investments in education, health and economic development. She was joined by Laura Bush, reprising an event the two American first ladies held last summer in Tanzania.

Calling Africa “an underappreciated continent,” Mrs. Obama said it was incumbent upon the world to develop a better understanding of what it has to offer.

“This is the beginning of a lot of work that needs to be done,” she said.

Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Bush also focused on the need to educate girls. Mrs. Obama noted that 30 million girls in sub-Saharan Africa do not attend school.

“We do need to make sure worldwide that all humans are valued,” Mrs. Bush said during the rare joint appearance that highlighted the relationship that has developed between the two first ladies.

George Bush also gave his endorsement for efforts to support women in Africa, declaring, “Taking care of women is good politics.” He announced that a global health partnership that helped screen more than 100,000 women in Botswana, Tanzania and Zambia for cervical cancer in the past three years was expanding into Namibia and Ethiopia

The effort is part of Bush’s “Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon” women’s health initiative that has been a focus of his post-presidency. He has made frequent trips to Africa since leaving the White House, but he rarely visits Washington and weighs in on political debates even less.

A focus on Africa has brought Obama and Bush together in the past. After a scheduling coincidence put them in Tanzania at the same time last summer, they met and laid a wreath in honor of victims of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing. Bush and his wife also traveled with the Obamas on Air Force One to South Africa in December for a memorial service honoring South African President Nelson Mandela.

The White House said Obama and Bush did not meet while the former president was in Washington Wednesday.

Two American aid workers infected with Ebola are getting an experimental drug so novel it has never been tested for safety in humans and was only identified as a potential treatment earlier this year, thanks to a longstanding research program by the U.S. government and the military.

The workers, Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly, are improving, although it’s impossible to know whether the treatment is the reason or they are recovering on their own, as others who have survived Ebola have done. Brantly is being treated at a special isolation unit at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital, and Writebol was expected to be flown there Tuesday in the same specially equipped plane that brought Brantly.

They were infected while working in Liberia, one of four West African nations dealing with the world’s largest Ebola outbreak. On Monday, the World Health Organization said the death toll had increased from 729 to 887 deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, and that more than 1,600 people have been infected.

In a worrisome development, the Nigerian Health Minister said a doctor who had helped treat Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American man who died July 25 days after arriving in Nigeria, has been confirmed to have the deadly disease. Tests are pending for three other people who also treated Sawyer and are showing symptoms.

There is no vaccine or specific treatment for Ebola, but several are under development.

The experimental treatment the U.S. aid workers are getting is called ZMapp and is made by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. of San Diego. It is aimed at boosting the immune system’s efforts to fight off Ebola and is made from antibodies produced by lab animals exposed to parts of the virus.

In a statement, the company said it was working with LeafBio of San Diego, Defyrus Inc. of Toronto, the U.S. government and the Public Health Agency of Canada on development of the drug, which was identified as a possible treatment in January.

The drug is made in tobacco plants at Kentucky BioProcessing, a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., in Owensboro, Kentucky, said spokesman David Howard. The plant “serves like a photocopier,” and the drug is extracted from the plant, he said.

Kentucky BioProcessing complied with a request from Emory and the international relief group Samaritan’s Purse to provide a limited amount of ZMapp to Emory, he said. Brantly works for the aid group.

The Kentucky company is working “to increase production of ZMapp but that process is going to take several months,” Howard said. The drug has been tested in animals and testing in humans is expected to begin later this year.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration must grant permission to use experimental treatments in the United States, but the FDA does not have authority over the use of such a drug in other countries, and the aid workers were first treated in Liberia. An FDA spokeswoman said she could not confirm or deny FDA granting access to any experimental therapy for the aid workers while in the U.S.

Writebol, 59, has been in isolation at her home in Liberia since she was diagnosed last month. She’s now walking with assistance and has regained her appetite, said Bruce Johnson, president of SIM USA, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based group that she works for in Africa.

Writebol has received two doses of the experimental drug so far, but Johnson was hesitant to credit the treatment for her improvement.

“Ebola is a tricky virus and one day you can be up and the next day down. One day is not indicative of the outcome,” he said. But “we’re grateful this medicine was available.”

Brantly, 33, also was said to be improving. Besides the experimental dose he got in Liberia, he also received a unit of blood from a 14-year-old boy, an Ebola survivor, who had been under his care. That seems to be aimed at giving Brantly antibodies the boy may have made to the virus.

Samaritan’s Purse initiated the events that led to the two workers getting ZMapp, according to a statement Monday by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The Boone, North Carolina-based group contacted U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials in Liberia to discuss various experimental treatments and were referred to an NIH scientist in Liberia familiar with those treatments.

The scientist answered some questions and referred them to the companies but was not officially representing the NIH and had no “official role in procuring, transporting, approving, or administering the experimental products,” the statement says.

In the meantime, dozens of African heads of state were in Washington for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, a three-day gathering hosted by President Barack Obama. U.S. health officials on Monday spoke with Guinean President Alpha Conde and senior officials from Liberia and Sierra Leone about the Ebola outbreak.

The Defense Department has long had a hand in researching infectious diseases, including Ebola. During much of the Cold War period this served two purposes: to keep abreast of diseases that could limit the effectiveness of troops deployed abroad and to be prepared if biological agents were used as weapons.

The U.S. military has no biological weapons program but continues to do research related to infectious diseases as a means of staying current on potential threats to the health of troops. It may also contribute medical expertise as part of interagency efforts in places like Africa where new infectious disease threats arise.

The hospital in Atlanta treating the aid workers has one of the nation’s most sophisticated infectious disease units. Patients are sealed off from anyone not in protective gear. Ebola is only spread through direct contact with an infected person’s blood or other bodily fluids, not through the air.

The CDC last week told U.S. doctors to ask about foreign travel by patients who come down with Ebola-like symptoms, including fever, headache, vomiting and diarrhea. A spokesman said three people have been tested so far in the U.S. – and all tested negative. Additionally, a New York City hospital on Monday said a man was being tested for Ebola but he likely didn’t have it.

Writebol and her husband, David, had been in Liberia since last August, sent there by SIM USA and sponsored by their home congregation at Calvary Church in Charlotte. At the clinic, Nancy Writebol’s duties included disinfecting staff entering or leaving the Ebola treatment area.

]]>http://newsone.com/3042219/us-govt-had-role-in-ebola-drug-given-aid-workers/feed/4Kent Brantly and his wife, AmberkirstenwestsavaliKent Brantly and his wife, AmberPeace Corps Pulls Volunteers From West Africa Amid Ebola Virus Outbreakhttp://newsone.com/3041791/peace-corps-ebola/
http://newsone.com/3041791/peace-corps-ebola/#commentsThu, 31 Jul 2014 16:15:17 +0000http://newsone.com/?p=3041791]]>The Ebola virus crisis in West Africa is so hard-hitting that humanitarian organizations like the Peace Corps announced Wednesday that they are pulling their volunteers out of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea until further notice, according to a statement. The agency will, however, continue to keep tabs on the outbreak of the virus along with government agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of State.

The virus, which typically begins two to three days after exposure, starts out with flu-like symptoms, such as fever, muscle pains, headaches, throat pain, then progresses to nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. The liver and kidneys are then attacked by the virus, and at some point, victims begin to experience bleeding through their orifices.

The Ebola virus has no cure. The mortality rate for the deadly virus is high, and currently, although there are efforts in place to try to find a cure, no vaccine or drugs have been developed to prevent it.

Thus far, some 650 people have died as a result of coming in contact with the virus, according to Doctors Without Borders, the organization that delivers emergency medical aid to those affected by epidemics, disasters or conflict.

Experts are already predicting that the situation with regards to the virus in the West African countries will get worse before it gets better. “This epidemic is without precedent,” Bart Janssens, director of operations for Doctors Without Borders, a group also known as Médecins Sans Frontières. “It’s absolutely not under control, and the situation keeps worsening,” Janssens told CNN.

In addition to the Peace Corps pulling out their 340 volunteers from the West African countries, Samaritan’s Purse, an international evangelical Christian agency and missionary group have also recalled all of their nonessential personnel from West Africa, according to WCNC.

Meanwhile, as to when Peace Corps volunteers can return to West Africa to continue their humanitarian efforts in trying to treat the ever-burgeoning Ebola cases will be determined at a later date according to the agency’s statement.

Focusing on the importance of having a substantive conversation about girls’ education in Africa Wednesday afternoon, First Lady Michelle Obama (pictured) spoke with an audience of 500 participants in President Barack Obama’s Mandela Fellowship for Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) summit before meeting with a select group during a roundtable.

Wearing a green and white dress, Mrs. Obama entered the Regency Ballroom to a standing ovation, after youth leader John Ilima of Uganda introduced her with a message that pushed the issue of girls’ education to the fore.

Just before picking up from where Ilima left off, the First Lady praised the attending group, saying, “Many of you are barely half my age, yet you have already founded businesses and NGOs. You’ve served as leaders in your government. You’ve earned countless degrees. You know dozens of languages, so you all represent the talent, energy, and diversity that is Africa’s life blood, and it is an honor to host you here.”

From the outset, the First Lady set the stage on the predicament of millions of girls around the world, “One of the issues I care deeply about is girls’ education, and across the globe, the statistics on this issue is heartbreaking. Right now, 62 million girls worldwide are not in school including 30 million girls in sub-Saharan Africa, and as we saw with Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban gunmen, and in Nigeria where more than 200 girls were kidnapped from their school dormitory by Boko Haram terrorists, even when girls do attend school, they often do so at great risk.”

To applause, Mrs. Obama honed in on the goal of her speech, emphasizing that rather than having a conversation that needlessly focuses on the lack of resources needed in Africa and throughout the world to facilitate better schooling, the only concrete dialogue to have is on the attitudes parents and societies have about girls and women.

“In recent years, there’s been a lot of talk about how to address this issue, and how we need more schools and teachers, and how we need more money for uniforms, transportation, — and all of those things are critically important, and I could give you a perfectly fine speech today about increasing investments in girls’ education around the world, but I said I wanted to be honest.

“And if I do that, then we all know the problem isn’t only about resources. It’s also about attitudes and beliefs. It’s about whether Fathers and Mothers think their daughters are as worthy for education as their sons. It’s about whether society’s claim to outdated laws and traditions oppress and exclude women. Or whether they view women as real citizens with fundamental rights. So the truth is, I don’t think it’s really productive to talk about issues about girls’ education unless we are willing to have a much bigger, bolder conversation about how women are viewed and treated in the world.”

And while many are familiar with Mrs. Obama’s upbringing, she made a point to temporarily switch gears by explaining who shares much of the responsibility for the success in her life: the men, “I am who I am today because of the people in my family, particularly the men in my family. They told me I was smart and strong and beautiful. And as I grew up, set a high bar for the type of man I allowed in my life.”

Many agree that Africa’s time is now, and the First Lady made sure to underscore many of the positive developments that are occurring there; however, issues, such as child marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM), human trafficking, and domestic violence continue to persevere, causing Mrs. Obama to challenge the men in the room to elevate the girls and women in their lives up, “So to all the men, my brothers here today, I have a simple message: We need you to shake these things up. Too often women are fighting these issues alone. I challenge the men here to do something. Men need to look in to their hearts and souls and ask the question, ‘Do you treat women like your equal?'”

As Mrs. Obama closed, YALI participants stood on their feet, clearly inspired by her message. Afterward, she had a closed meeting with 40 youth leaders at a roundtable.

The First Lady will deliver another presentation during next week’s U.S. Africa Summit.

The President announced during the town hall that the Washington Fellowship was being renamed as the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, in honor of the former South African President, Nelson Mandela.

Mandela Washington Fellows represent the best and brightest from communities across Africa, and fields ranging from education, medicine, law, business, and beyond. These are the young leaders whose skills, passion, and visions for the future will help shape the fate of their countries and the world. It is in everyone’s best interest to help them prepare with the tools they need to build a healthier, more secure, more prosperous, and more peaceful Africa, which is why President Obama launched YALI in the first place.

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President Obama also took today’s opportunity to preview another historic event planned for next week. The U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit will be hosted in Washington, by President Obama, and will represent the largest gathering any American president has ever hosted with African heads of state and government.

The President pointed out on Monday, “even as we deal with crises and challenges in other parts of the world that often dominate the headlines; even as we acknowledge the real hardships that so many Africans face every day — we have to make sure that we’re all seizing the extraordinary potential of today’s Africa, the youngest and fastest-growing continent.”

YALI is about capitalizing on the creativity and talent of Africa’s young leaders by empowering them with the skills, training, and technology necessary to make lasting change, and meaningful progress back home. And to do so, we are engaging public and private sector partners to create new Regional Leadership Centers across Africa to reach more young leaders.

We’re joining with American universities, African institutions, and business partners like Microsoft and MasterCard Foundation. Starting next year, young Africans can come to these centers to network, access the latest technology, and get training in management and entrepreneurship. The first centers will be located in Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya — and will provide tens of thousands of young Africans the resources they need to put their ideas into action.

As last year came to a close, the world said goodbye to one of the brightest lights the world has ever known: President Nelson Mandela. His life was proof of the power within each of us to leave the world better than we found it. Yet, as that brilliant star dimmed, we now have the opportunity to see 500 more shine brightly this week.

One of this summer’s Fellows, Sobel Ngom from Senegal, captured the spirit of his experience in the YALI program this way: “Here, I have met Africa. The [Africa] I have always believed in. She is beautiful, young, full of talent, motivation and ambition.” And being here with all of his Fellow Mandela Washington Fellows — learning together, working together, dreaming together — has only strengthened his determination, he says, to realize his aspirations for his country and his continent.

On Monday, 500 participants of the Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders joined Pres. Barack Obama for a town hall meeting. The meeting caps off a summer for a group of promising young African leaders, ages 25 to 35, who spent their time in the United States sharpening their skills at American universities.

MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberia’s president has closed all but three land border crossings, restricted public gatherings, and quarantined communities heavily affected by the Ebola outbreak in the West African nation.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (pictured) described the measures late Sunday after the first meeting of a new taskforce she created and is chairing to contain the disease, which has killed 129 people in the country and more than 670 across the region.

A top Liberian doctor working at Liberia’s largest hospital died on Saturday, and two American aid workers have fallen ill, underscoring the dangers facing those charged with bringing the outbreak under control.

Last week a Liberian official flew to Nigeria via Lome, Togo, and died of the disease at a Lagos hospital. The fact that the official, Patrick Sawyer, was able to board an international flight despite being ill raised fears that the disease could spread beyond the three countries already affected – Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

There is no known cure for Ebola, which begins with symptoms including fever and sore throat and escalates to vomiting, diarrhea and internal bleeding. The disease spreads through direct contact with blood and other bodily fluids as well as indirect contact with “environments contaminated with such fluids,” according to the World Health Organization.

“No doubt, the Ebola virus is a national health problem,” Sirleaf said. “And as we have also begun to see, it attacks our way of life, with serious economic and social consequences.”

Sirleaf said all borders would be closed except for three – one of which crosses into Sierra Leone, one that cross into Guinea and another that crosses into both. Experts believe the outbreak originated in southeast Guinea as far back as January, though the first cases weren’t confirmed until March. That country has recorded the most deaths, with 319. Sierra Leone has recorded more of the recent cases, however, and has seen 224 deaths in total.

Liberia will keep open Roberts International Airport outside Monrovia and James Spriggs Payne Airport, which is in the city.

Sirleaf said “preventive and testing centers will be established” at the airports and open border crossings, and that “stringent preventive measures to be announced will be scrupulously adhered to.”

Other measures include restricting demonstrations and marches and requiring restaurants and other public venues to screen a five-minute film on Ebola.

Sirleaf also empowered the security forces to commandeer vehicles to aide in the public health response and ordered them to enforce the new regulations.

In Sierra Leone, President Ernest Bai Koroma announced Monday he was heading to the east of the country to visit the country’s top Ebola doctor who became infected with the disease last week. Officials have said the doctor, Sheik Humarr Khan, has been responding well to treatment at a center run by Doctors Without Borders in the town of Kailahun. Khan has been described as a national hero for his work fighting the outbreak.

Koroma made the announcement at the National Stadium in Freetown, where he joined Muslims in prayers to mark the Eid el-Fitr holiday.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — In the three months since Islamic extremists kidnapped more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls, 11 of their parents have died, town residents say.

The town where the girls were kidnapped, Chibok, is cut off by militants, who have been attacking villages in the region.

Seven fathers of kidnapped girls were among 51 bodies brought to the Chibok hospital after an attack on the nearby village of Kautakari this month, said a health worker who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals by the extremists.

At least four more parents have died of heart failure, high blood pressure and other illnesses that the community blames on trauma due to the mass abduction 100 days ago, said community leader Pogu Bitrus, who provided their names.

“One father of two of the girls kidnapped just went into a kind of coma and kept repeating the names of his daughters, until life left him,” said Bitrus.

President Goodluck Jonathan met Tuesday with parents of the 219 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls and some classmates who managed to escape from Islamic extremists. Jonathan pledged to continue working to see the girls “are brought out alive,” said his spokesman of the meeting which press were not permitted to attend. The parents showed no emotion after the meeting, but some shook hands with the president.

Chibok, the town where the girls were kidnapped, is cut off because of frequent attacks on the roads that are studded with burned out vehicles. Commercial flights no longer go into the troubled area and the government has halted charter flights.

Through numerous phone calls to Chibok and the surrounding area, The Associated Press has gathered information about the situation in the town where the students were kidnapped from their school.

More danger is on the horizon.

Boko Haram is closing in on Chibok, attacking villages ever closer to the town. Villagers who survive the assaults are swarming into the town, swelling its population and straining resources. A food crisis looms, along with shortages of money and fuel, said community leader Bitrus.

On the bright side, some of the young women who escaped are recovering, said a health worker, who insisted on anonymity because he feared reprisals from Boko Haram. Girls who had first refused to discuss their experience, now are talking about it and taking part in therapeutic singing and drawing — a few drew homes, some painted flowers and one young woman drew a picture of a soldier with a gun last week.

Girls who said they would never go back to school now are thinking about how to continue their education, he said.

Counseling is being offered to families of those abducted and to some of the 57 students who managed to escape in the first few days, said the health worker. He is among 36 newly trained in grief and rape counseling, under a program funded by USAID.

All the escapees remain deeply concerned about their schoolmates who did not get away.

A presidential committee investigating the kidnappings said 219 girls still are missing. But the community says there are more because some parents refused to give the committee their daughters’ names, fearing the stigma involved.

Boko Haram filmed a video in which they threatened to sell the students into slavery and as child brides. It also showed a couple of the girls describing their “conversion” from Christianity to Islam.

At least two have died of snake bites, a mediator who was liaising with Boko Haram told AP two months ago. At that time he said at least 20 of the girls were ill — not surprising given that they are probably being held in an area infested with malarial mosquitoes, poisonous snakes and spiders, and relying on unclean water from rivers.

Most of the schoolgirls are still believed to be held in the Sambisa Forest — a wildlife reserve that includes almost impenetrably thick jungle as well as more open savannah. The forest borders on sand dunes marking the edge of the Sahara Desert. Sightings of the girls and their captors have been reported in neighboring Cameroon and Chad.

In Chibok, the town’s population is under stress.

“There are families that are putting up four and five other families,” local leader Bitrus said, adding that food stocks are depleted. Livestock has been looted by Boko Haram so villagers are arriving empty handed. Worst of all, no one is planting though it is the rainy season, he said.

“There is a famine looming,” he warned.

Chibok and nearby villages are targets because they are enclaves of staunch Christians in predominantly Muslim north Nigeria.

The number of soldiers guarding Chibok has increased from 15 to about 200 since the kidnapping but they have done little to increase security in Chibok, said Bitrus. The soldiers often refuse to deploy to villages under attack though there is advance warning 90 percent of the time, he said.

Last month the extremists took control and raised their black flags over two villages within 30 kilometers (18 miles) of Chibok. Last week they ordered residents of another village just 16 kilometers (10 miles) away to clear out, Bitrus said. Every village in the neighboring Damboa area has been attacked and sacked, and all the villages bordering Cameroon have been burned and are deserted, Bitrus said, quoting residents who fled.

The attacks continue despite the fact the military placed the area under a state of emergency in May 2013.

Residents feel so abandoned that they appealed this month for the United Nations to send troops to protect them. The U.N. has repeatedly urged Nigeria’s government to live up to its international responsibility to protect citizens.

President Goodluck Jonathan insists his government and military are doing everything possible to ensure the girls’ release. The Defense Ministry says it knows where they are but fears any military campaign could lead to their deaths.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in a new video released this week repeated his demands that Jonathan release detained extremists in exchange for the girls — an offer Jonathan has so far refused.

After three months, few Chibok residents believe all the schoolgirls will ever return home.